


The Whole Truth

by Transposable_Element



Category: Original Work
Genre: Big Decisions, Gen, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3279926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl has a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Backstory for chapter 30 of [In Mourning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1831738/chapters/7155134). Probably won't make much sense outside of that context.

Pearl got up early on Christmas morning so she would be ready when Marjorie arrived. She tiptoed downstairs. The house was quiet, and there were only a few decorations: a wreath, some evergreen branches on the mantelpiece in the front room. So different from at home, where Percy and Vernon and their families would be gathered at Mamma and Daddy’s place: a whole houseful of people, bursting at the seams. There would be a tree; there would be stockings hung up for her nieces and nephews. The children would be running around and around the house, up and down the stairs, too full of excitement to sit still. They would all go to church together. Mama and Vernon both sang in the church choir, and Pearl imagined the sound of it. They sang many of the same hymns in the church she went to here, but it didn’t sound the same. For a moment she was so lonesome she thought her heart would break. 

The worst thing was, she couldn’t say much about it to anybody.

Pearl didn’t lie, not exactly. But she kept all the photographs of her family hidden in a drawer and locked her bedroom door before she took them out to look at. And there were so many things she just didn’t talk about: what her parents did for a living, the games she played growing up, where her friends back home were going to school. Some of the details might not give anything away to English people, but she could never be sure. If she let slip that Percy had gone to Howard University, and that Mama worked there as a secretary, would they realize what that meant? Or if she mentioned that Daddy had worked as a porter when he was young? One time Mrs. Pole asked what regiment Percy had been in, and Pearl didn’t know what to say. Luckily Mrs. Pole laughed and said she could never remember that kind of thing either. It made Pearl feel guilty. She hated being dishonest with people.

She wasn’t even certain how much difference it would make, if people knew. Maybe not very much. They didn’t have laws here like at home. She wouldn’t get thrown out of university. She was sure Mrs. Pole wouldn’t make a fuss, since she had had a boarder from the West Indies just last year, and now she had Mr. Chakravarty. Percy said English people were different from white folks at home, that when he was in the service they would invite him and his friends into their homes, like there was nothing unusual about it.

But Mama and Daddy had persuaded Pearl to try to pass for white while she was in England. They thought she should give it a try, that it would make things easier for her. She was a foreigner anyway, so any differences between her and other people wouldn’t stand out so much. Nobody knew anything about her past, or about her family. Besides which, with her light skin and good hair, nobody here would even guess unless she told them. She could be white here, if she wanted.

Was it what she wanted?

More importantly, did she want to try to pass after she went home? It would mean living apart from her family, not seeing them very often, denying being related to them. Going to a different church. She was still writing to Ellis, but if she was going to pass she could never marry him. Passing couldn't be worth that price, could it?

_If I don’t tell somebody soon, I’m going to burst,_ she thought, as she went around the kitchen making coffee, getting out eggs and butter and bread. But who could she tell? She didn’t have very many friends here. But then, how could she be friends with people if she didn’t tell them the truth? How could she even bring it up—“Oh, by the way, I’m a Negro”?

She heard someone walking downstairs and turned to see Miss Pevensie come into the kitchen. Her straight black hair was pulled into a pony-tail. Pearl marveled at how beautiful and poised she looked, even dressed in slacks and a sweater, with her hair damp and no lipstick.

Thinking of what Miss Pevensie had lost, Pearl knew for certain she could never give up her family, not willingly.

“Merry Christmas!” Pearl said, forcing a smile. “I’m making fried eggs. Do you want some? I made a pot of coffee, too.”

“Merry Christmas. A fried egg sounds like just the thing, thanks,” said Miss Pevensie.

"I make mine over easy. Is that okay?"

"Perfect," Miss Pevensie said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “You’re up early,” she added.

“I’m going to church with Marjorie Preston this morning. We both go to the Methodist church.”

“Oh, I didn’t even realize you’d met,” said Miss Pevensie.

“She came over a few days ago to bring the turkey, and we just hit it off,” said Pearl.

“That’s nice. I’m glad she’s making new friends. She and my sister were very close.”

“Yes, she told me,” said Pearl. It had been a bit overwhelming, in fact. All Pearl had done was ask how Marjorie knew Miss Pevensie, and suddenly Marjorie was sitting down at the kitchen table and pouring her heart out.

Pearl got out plates and put the breakfast on the table. With half her mind on her conversation with Miss Pevensie, Pearl thought about Marjorie, and about trust. Marjorie had trusted her, had laid her soul bare before a complete stranger. Shouldn’t she return that trust? When Pearl heard the knock at the kitchen door, she made a decision.

_I’ll tell her. Today, now, while we’re walking to church._

**Author's Note:**

> I know the expression “good hair” is considered offensive, but that’s how Pearl probably would have phrased it circa 1949.
> 
> This piece owes a lot to Shirlee Taylor Hazlip’s memoir, _The Sweeter the Juice_ , which is about the choices that different members of her family made about whether to live as black or white, and about reconnecting with the white branch of her family. I must have read it nearly 20 years ago, when it was first published. One of the main things I remember about it was how isolating it was for people born into black families to “become white,” which is the term she uses rather than the more common and more judgmental “pass for white.” People gave up family ties. They felt compelled to hold themselves at a distance from white people, as well, for fear of giving something away. Often they were afraid to have children for fear they might not look “white” enough. It was a drastic thing to do.
> 
> African American soldiers stationed in England during the war were often surprised at how little racial consciousness there was in England at the time. The U.S. army enforced segregation among its own troops, but there were no similar laws in England. Unfortunately, racial tensions in England increased in the decades following the war.
> 
> ETA, 9/2015: I was looking at this and decided that I had some class markers wrong, so I made a few minor edits.


End file.
